


Occupational Health and Safety

by kihadu



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-03
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 10:17:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1262569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/pseuds/kihadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Newton forgoes the OHS regulations, and Hermann suffers on through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Occupational Health and Safety

**Author's Note:**

> I don't ever plan to work in a lab but if, by some misfortune, I do, I am 300% certain that rules like "don't use the lab fridge to store food intended for human consumption" will be completely ignored. But I am also 300% certain that Newt is breaking at least all of the rules of OHS, and probably if you made some new ones he'd break them, too.

The room smelled faintly like cheese, or more correctly, it smelled like a room that was told that cheese has a smell, and it tried to emulate it but failed miserably. Or, it smelled like a room that routinely had a group of too-busy scientists dragged into it to be told how to act in their laboratories. Bertha, the woman who got to tell them this, was looking formidable in red, and glaring at them all. 

There had been An Incident. This happened approximately once every few months, and everyone, including the woman who gave them, was sick to death of these seminars. It was Hermann's misfortune that he shared a laboratory with Newton. He was more than a little tired of having to grab the man and shove him into the emergency shower to scrub off kaiju blue.

He rolled his eyes at one of their lab assistants, trying for a moment to be one of the downtrodden few, bonding over Newton's misactions. She rolled her eyes back and promptly sat down on the other side of the room. 

Hermann didn't feel particularly hurt by this. He didn't have friends, and he was used to it by now. 

Except for Newt. Newton. Doctor Geiszler.

Hermann jerked his head around automatically at the flash of colour moving in his periphery. Newton sat down too close, their arms knocking and feet getting in the way of each other. Hermann refused to move, which meant they ended up sitting with their calves pressed together. Hermann glared at him in irritation, and Newton grinned back. 

It had been years, and that stupid grin still made Hermann's heart pound. 

"Here at the PPDC safety," Bertha paused on that word, as if to emphasis it, "is of the utmost importance. This week has had yet another Incident." She surveyed the room, and glared at Newton. Newton smiled and began drawing cartoons on the handout. 

"The chemicals you are working with are toxic. The biological substances you are working with are toxic." She spoke like a machine gun, not caring that her audience was only a few feet away and was less than a dozen. 

They all settled down for a long lecture. 

.

"'The chemicals are working with are toxic'," Newt's voice carried down the hallway. His parody of Bertha aimed more for laughs than accuracy. "When we started here-”

“I know,” Hermann interrupted. He knew this story, and even, privately, thought that it was a little funny, but Newton could take a good twenty minutes telling this story. “Calling water dihydrogen monoxide is an old hoax. She is Occupation Health and Safety, not a chemist, and most likely distracted by those vulgar pieces of art on your arms. A safety hazard, too, you might note.”

“I have a lab coat,” said Newton, looking at his arms. He’d been around labs since he was tall enough to reach the benches, and he’d seen what acid could do to skin. He wouldn’t care much, except he paid a lot of money for this skin.

“Please use the past tense, Dr. Geiszler. You do not have, you had.”

Newton looked at the lab. “I’m sure it’s around.”

“I put it into a biohazard bin,” Hermann gestured wildly with his cane. “Where it belonged.”

“That was my favourite!”

“It was half dissolved in kaiju.”

“Whatever, dude. Are you going to do that thing where you try to enforce OHS for a few days or can we just launch right into how we both know it’s gonna be?”

“You should not keep your lunch beside alien entrails, and especially not when those aliens are, at best, poorly understood.”

“Uh, as the xenobiologist in the room I think I’ll decide what’s safe and what’s not. And my lunch can stay put.”

“Fine,” growled Hermann, as he knew he would. “Just don’t use the oven. We have a perfectly good kitchenette.”

“Yeah, um,” Newton chewed a nail and ploughed on in. “The other day when I was dehydrating pieces of cecum - and they have a lot of cecum, even though they’re probably carnivores? Everything indicates at a carnivorous diet but their cecum could put an elephant to shame!” Hermann tapped his cane on the floor, bringing Newton back to the point. “Uh.” Newton fidgeted. “There wasn’t room in the oven so, um. I used ours.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, dude, can you quit gettin’ surprised about things we both knew were going to happen?”

Hermann blinked and conceded. “I suppose it was only a matter of time.”

“When have I ever poisoned you? I wash the mugs after I use them.”

“You - excuse me? Use them for what?”

“For… tea?” Newton backed away and found himself against a desk. “Look, dude, I ran outta beakers-”

“Because you keep breaking them.”

“And the mugs were  _right there_.”

“This cup?” asked Hermann, pointing at the white teacup, balanced precariously in its saucer on the edge of a table. “You used this cup?”

“It was for science!” Newton gave him a crooked smile. “I did wash it.”

Hermann brought an insult to the tip of his tongue and decided that it wasn’t worth it.

“Fine,” he growled. “Just… Please don’t explode another kaiju over the lab. It is exceedingly messy, and those seminars take up time I could be using for my work.”

“It’s not like I plan it!”

Hermann fixes him with a level stare. “Sometimes, Doctor Geiszler, I think you do, if only to irritate me.”

“Nah, I can do that without Bertha glaring at me. Eyes like daggers. I’ll do my best to not make this area biohazardous.” Hermann thinned his lips and waited. “Any more biohazardous.” He grinned, and Hermann felt any residual annoyance at the situation dissipate. “Scout’s honour.”

“You were never a scout.”


End file.
